Explainers

Inside the house of tomorrow: Smart home explained

The future is now

Published

February 1, 2018

Luigi Leonardo

Ten years ago, smart homes belonged to the realm of science fiction. Back then, you would only see connected smart devices in TV shows like Black Mirror, rather than in cons and tradeshows.

Today, a connected household isn’t just a working theory; it’s already a reality pushed by the world’s leading tech brands. Common, everyday tasks can now be automated by artificial intelligence or simplified through voice commands.

We are living in a world where every device has a voice, whether it’s Alexa, Siri, Cortana, or the Google Assistant. While some anticipate the curiosities that the future will bring, some fear the rapid changes that a house from the future beckons.

Regardless of how you might feel about the future of futuristic abodes, living in one can still be a mystery, especially for the everyday homeowner. There are layers of tech to wade through. As with every house hunt, it’s time to take a tour of the house of tomorrow before you inevitably live in one.

Garage: letting the right one in

As you pull up into the driveway with your electric car, the garage door automatically opens to the sound of your voice. The lights go on to help you park. You climb out of the car and hook it up to the charging station on the wall.

As you head to the front door, the garage door closes behind you. The smart camera above the door detects who you are and notifies your family that you’ve arrived. The locks disengage, and you enter.

The most common elements of a smart home are those seen from the outside. If you live within a gated community, you’ve seen automatic gates open and close by themselves. You might’ve also seen electric vehicles roaming the streets already. They may be outside the house, but these machines have become essential to the smart home ecosystem. They’ve become extensions of your smart house that you can take with you wherever.

Even as you exit your garage, other smart devices are being fitted around your house. The Nest Cam IQ, for example, is a smart security camera that adds an extra oomph in security. It can record in HD, listen in on conversations, and detect familiar faces.

Having an integrated smart security system allows you to enter and exit your home without fussing with keychains and padlocks.

Living room: command center

Entering your house, you kiss your spouse hello, kick off your shoes, and watch a bit of TV before dinner. Just as you plop down onto your couch, you remember that your house security is still disabled. You ask Alexa to turn it on. You rest easy while watching the latest House of Cards episode.

The evolution of the smart home began in earnest with the living room. As it was the central hub of the entire house, the living room also became the center for the Internet of Things. The new smart home ecosystem coordinated everything from the lights to the TV to the security system — right from the comforts of your sofa.

Who hasn’t heard of a smart TV? The industry’s newest TVs integrate the internet to build a more comprehensive entertainment experience. From a device that connects to mere broadcast stations, the TV evolved to access a vast catalog of online entertainment. You could watch Netflix while searching for your favorite recipes on Google. The smart TV became the desktop of your living room.

As people spent more time interacting with their TVs, smart devices started installing themselves around the luxuries of the living room. While you’re watching a movie, you can change everything from the temperature to the lights without standing up or pausing the programming.

The Philips Hue, for example, takes control of your house’s lighting system. That’s not all. The smart bulb automates your lights’ operation for both when you’re in and out of the house. It can even change a room’s hue to set the mood.

Another example is the Ecobee 3 smart thermostat. The automated system optimizes the temperature based on your activity inside and on the temperature outside. Further, it also makes your energy usage more efficient.

Kitchen: robots get hungry, too

As you open your fridge, a voice lists down the food you have in stock. Knowing how much pasta and olive oil you have left, the voice assistant suggests pesto for dinner. You agree. Alexa, then, preheats the oven for the pasta and preps your dishwasher for the oily dishes later.

Despite the oodles of devices inside a kitchen, tech makers are only starting to optimize the room for the smart home. LG, for example, launched a series of devices that assist you even before you start preparing the dish.

Their smart refrigerator catalogs the supplies you have left. It alerts you when you’re short of ingredients and recommends recipes based on what’s inside. Plus, it even has its own entertainment system to get your groove on while you cook.

After you gather all the ingredients, the system passes the recipe down to the appliances you’ll need. A smart oven preheats to fit the temperature you need; a smart dishwasher customizes its spin cycles to wash dishes optimally.

Bedroom: the last frontier

The day is over. Before you drift off to sleep, you remember to charge your devices — iPhone X, Apple Watch — on the wireless charging stand. You set Google Home to wake you up at 7am by playing a Rihanna song.

The bedroom is the last frontier of the home of tomorrow. The bed is the last sanctuary from a life taken over by tech. That, however, won’t last. As early as now, the Internet of Things follows you even to the bedroom.

Wireless charging stations, smart thermostat panels, and security panels pervade our bedrooms, allowing us easy access to how our house works before we call it a night. A smart bed is still forthcoming, but technology is already reaching out before it inevitably comes.

With Google Home and Amazon Echo, voice assistants now lull us to sleep and wake us up in the morning. Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, and Cortana will become the first and last voices we hear every day. The eerily human voice assistants have already lent their voices to every device in our home.

It’s only a matter of time before our house becomes a machine itself. Whether you embrace the future or shun it, technology will always find a way to make our lives easier. But don’t worry when it comes. All you’ll hear is the soothing voice of Alexa, asking how you want your meat cooked.

Illustrations by MJ Jucutan

Related Topics:Alexa Google Assistant specials

Explainers

Everyone’s angry at PlayStation’s new no-disc policy, and this is why

It’s a tragedy for nostalgia, ownership, and preservation.

Published

July 2, 2026

Luigi Leonardo

Check in with your gamer friends today. Today, a lot of gamers are up in arms over Sony’s decision to kill the physical game disc starting in 2028. But, if you’re a digital-only gamer or just not a gamer yourself, you might not understand the anger. If you want to understand the ire or just want to relate with your gamer friends, here’s a primer for you.

Ending the era of the physical media

Last year, Nintendo launched the Switch 2. Though the console still has a slot for physical cartridges, the Switch 2 also introduced the Virtual Game Card as a way to digitize your library of games.

Of course, the feature wasn’t positioned as a way to eliminate physical cartridges. In fact, Nintendo just wanted to add the flexibility of physical cartridges to the digital world. In the end, the feature strangely coincided with less cartridges. For example, Pokémon Pokopia, one of the most popular games this year, does not come with a cartridge even if you buy a “physical” copy in a brick-and-mortar store. It was a portent of things to come.

Fast forward to today, Sony has made the monumental decision to stop producing physical game discs starting in 2028. The PlayStation’s future is completely digital.

On a similar note, Microsoft is also experimenting with a disc-to-digital feature. Much like the Nintendo Virtual Game Card, the experiment will digitize libraries and attaches the digital copy to the physical game disc. It sounds awfully like a prelude to killing off the game disc.

Why this matters

The physical disc is synonymous with a simpler time. It represents a time when gamers camped out stores to anticipate midnight releases, when gamers can learn more about their games through an in-box manual, and when gamers can show off their fandom through a beautifully stocked shelf of games.

And yes, that’s part of why this situation sucks, but it’s not the only reason.

If you’re an outsider looking in, this nostalgia factor is the easiest to see. Then again, it’s also the most difficult to relate with, especially if you’ve never had the history of buying physical games.

The more crucial reason — and the one that most people will relate with — is media ownership. By not having a physical copy, you will no longer have ownership of what you bought digitally.

And it’s not an imaginary issue. In 2024, Steam amended its policies to reflect that players do not own the games they buy. Rather, they simply own a license to play the game.

In the same year, Ubisoft delisted The Crew, a sure sign that the new policy means business. Though Steam itself has a relatively good track record of prioritizing its customers, publishers and developers can get rid of games if they choose to.

That limitation doesn’t exist with a physical copy. As long as you have a working disc drive, you can install a game whenever you want, even if the publisher decides to pull it from stores.

Therein lies how much this is a touchy topic. Should you own digital goods in the same way as you own physical ones? If the answer is yes, then selling only the license for the good doesn’t make sense. But if it’s a no, we shouldn’t pay full price for something we don’t own anyway.

Will PlayStation actually delete games?

Now, just because they can, does it mean that they will?

Right now, it’s hard to say. You can certainly go by the optimistic hope that PlayStation would never do something as anti-consumer as that. And yes, there are times when you’d be right.

Plus, there is a good chance that governments, especially those in the European Union, will protect consumers if PlayStation even thinks about deleting a game that others have paid for. Governments have been known to intervene in the past, such as when the EU forced Apple to adopt USB-C as a standard. There are checks and balances available.

Then again, Sony has had recent history of deleting media from a user’s library.

Only a few days ago, PlayStation made headlines for deleting over 500 titles from their library. Starting September 1, users can no longer access movies distributed by Studio Canal, due to licensing agreements. Sony was unapologetic about unceremoniously deleting this content. No refunds, no apologies; just 500 movies, which you thought you bought, gone for good.

No matter how you angle it, Sony’s recent decisions just don’t bode well for media ownership.

You can argue that this is the price we’re paying for not buying enough physical games. Still, losing PlayStation discs, even as an option, is tragic for nostalgia, ownership, and preservation.

The world we live in

Unfortunately, this all comes with precedent. Unless you buy physical games and movies, we already don’t own anything in today’s world.

Outside games, Netflix and Disney+ remove the ownership of movies and shows from us. It’s already common practice for these platforms to remove titles regularly. Some platforms even give you a last chance to catch these titles before they go away. Moreover, they can even restrict access, like with Disney+, if you travel abroad.

In exchange for convenience, subscription services and digital storefronts have made it all too comfortable to not own media. With a rental service like Netflix, that’s all expected, but we’re now at the inevitable stage when even bought games and movies are at the behest of our corporate overlords.

This is where the fury comes from. Companies are getting more brazen about taking more options from us. Between this and the increasing prices of RAM, it’s getting harder and harder to live as a tech-savvy citizen in today’s age.

Computers

Samsung’s SECRET That Made OLED Even Better

Say hello to the new QD-OLED Penta Tandem display tech by the Korean giant

Published

May 23, 2026

GadgetMatch and Michael Josh Villanueva

Samsung Display just unveiled QD-OLED Penta Tandem technology. This is a next-generation display structure that stacks five emission layers to improve brightness, efficiency, and overall OLED performance.

In this video, we simplify what Penta Tandem actually is, how it works, and show you two monitors that already have the technology — specifically from MSI and Dell.

For more details, check out Samsung Display here.